Medical Family Therapy

Medical family therapy (MedFT) is a field in health care comprised of clinicians, researchers, educators, and policy makers who think relationally, work systemically, and honor complex biological, psychological, social, and spiritual dimensions of health. It was developed in response to several opposing forces in Western medicine that were rendering health care both inefficient and fragmented, including (a) separations between the treatment(s) of patients’ minds and bodies (and concomitant disconnections between behavioral and physical health providers); (b) exclusions of the family and community contexts in which patients reside; and (c) an increasingly complex and difficult-to-navigate system of specialists, clinic procedures and care processes, rules, regulations, and payer systems. Keeping up with contemporary calls to improve health care through purposeful collaboration between and among disciplines and focused ...